Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), is a novel virus that results in a variety of clinical manifestations. In this report, I describe an uncommon presentation of reactive arthritis (ReA) following COVID-19. I report the case of a 39-year-old woman who presented with arthritis in the small joints of the hands after recovery from COVID-19 infection. To my knowledge, only four cases involving such a presentation have been reported in the literature so far.

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Background: Unplanned hospital readmission is concerning health care providers and is frequently used as a quality indicator for hospital care. Objectives: This study was conducted in order to examine the rate and associated factors for 30-day readmission in internal medicine units at King Abdulaziz University Hospital, Jeddah. Methods: We retrospectively collected data for patients who had readmission within 30 days of hospital discharge from January 2010 to December 2013. We obtained the following information for all patients: patient demographics, admitting medical service, diagnosis at the first admission, presence of hypoxia, sepsis, and hospital length of stay at the first admission. We then compared the data for patients with 30-day readmissions to those who did not have readmission within 30 days Results: Of the 3838 patients who had hospital admission within the study period, 678 (17.7%) had readmission within 30 days. The mean patient age was 52 years (SD, 21.2 years). Patients who had readmission within 30 days were more likely to be female; older than 65 years of age; diabetic; hypertensive; bed ridden; and to have a history of stroke, bed sores and/or sepsis (all P values ≤0.001, except for stroke, P=0.003). Conclusion: Our study showed that about 18% of patients had readmission within 30 days. Those patients were of older age, with comorbidities like, diabetes or stroke or were bedridden.

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Background: This study assesses whether patients with ischemic heart disease receive comparable care and achieve similar outcomes compared to the rest of patients in the department of medicine at our tertiary academic center. Methods: This retrospective study examined the level of care received by all patients who were admitted to the Internal Medical Services at King Abdulaziz University Hospital from January 2010 through December 2012. A number of potential performance indicators were evaluated to ascertain level of care, including clinical deterioration with unplanned intensive care unit transfers, in-hospital complications, in-hospital mortality, and the rate of 30-day readmission. The t test or Mann-Whitney U-test was used to compare means and medians, respectively. The chi-square test was used to compare categorical variables. Results: Of 3838 patients, about a fifth of ischemic heart disease patients (19.3%) required intensive care unit transfer (P < 0.001). Patients admitted through the emergency department were the largest group to require subsequent intensive care unit transfer (65.9% of all cases). The length of stay was significantly shorter in patients admitted to the cardiac care unit, compared with those admitted to other services (3.5 [1.5] days versus 5.8 [5.5] days for patients admitted to other units; P < 0.001). Thirty-day readmission rate was significantly lower in ischemic heart disease patients (11.7%) compared with non- ischemic heart disease cases (18.5%) (P < 0.0001).